Barnes & Noble opens new location in Johnson County, citing ‘appetite for books’
Read on, Johnson County book lovers: Massive bookselling chain Barnes & Noble has opened a new location in the area.
The new bookstore is open in Overland Park’s Bluhawk shopping center at 7840 W. 161st St.
The spot marks the sixth location in the Kansas City metro, with two others in Johnson County. Locations include Oak Park Mall, Town Center Plaza, Zona Rosa and the Country Club Plaza.
The 14,000-square-foot spot celebrated its grand opening last Wednesday. Barnes & Noble’s new, single-story spot lives next to J. Crew Factory, Of Course Kitchen & Co., and several other tenants. The burgeoning shopping center also neighbors several schools, including Blue Valley West High School.
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Saladworks plans to open nearby at 7745 W. 159th St. Its opening date is listed online as Nov. 13.
“The enthusiastic response from the community demonstrates an insatiable appetite for books and bookstores,” Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt said in a press release. “Our talented Overland Park booksellers cannot wait to welcome customers into their brand-new Barnes & Noble.”
In its release, Barnes & Noble boasted of increasing sales after more than a decade of falling numbers, seemingly surviving the rise of Amazon.
In 2024, Barnes & Noble opened more bookstores in a single year than it did from 2009 to 2019, according to the company. It plans to open more than 60 new bookstores in 2025.
Barnes & Noble stores of today are often smaller than the original, multi-story giants of the early 2000s. Like the Bluhawk store, the new builds focus on light woods, bright colors and a “book-first” approach.
The Bluhawk shopping center is anchored by the AdventHealth Sports Park at Bluhawk, the first phase of which opened last fall. The 260,000-square-foot sports park at 16201 Shawnee Drive features volleyball courts, basketball courts, an ice rink, arcade games, bowling lanes and more.
“Facilities like this do exist in the country, and lifestyle centers exist in the country, but what doesn’t exist in the country is putting those two together,” Bart Lowen, vice president of Price Brothers said last year when the sports facility opened. “Everything that’s coming together here is done in a way that is so unique … it’s creating an experience beyond just coming here to play basketball.”
The last time Barnes & Noble opened a Kansas City area bookstore was in 2022, when it opened a spot at 1030 NE Coronado Drive in Blue Springs. Its Independence spot closed in 2021.